


bitch, i'll title myself

by dramaticgasp



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Canon Compliant, Post-Canon, USC Trojans, jerejean
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-21
Updated: 2019-03-21
Packaged: 2019-11-26 22:15:40
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,890
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18186332
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dramaticgasp/pseuds/dramaticgasp
Summary: System breakdowns happen like this: automated alerts pop up. Fuse activation necessary. Deactivate fire detectors.''I probably won't say what you're hoping to hear,'' Jean says.





	bitch, i'll title myself

System breakdowns happen like this: automated alerts pop up. _Fuse activation necessary. Deactivate fire detectors._ They happen like poor attempts to break alienation, or the shallowest familiarity. And it's worse when it's someone who can do better. They happen like this:

  


''What's up?'' Jeremy asks. His tone is casual. That makes it worse. He can do better.

  


Streetlights are masking March in summer, glistening off where walkway indents are rain-flooded.

  


(''Here goes,'' Maia says, '' _the death zone._ '') 

  


(Her shoes are white. What a joke.)

  


''Nothing,'' Jean says. 

  


He's walking behind others, a hood narrowing his visual field. It feels like playing with space. It reduces him to his intentions; he only sees what he looks at. 

  


('' _Do I look like a Russian?_ '')

  


A hand grabs his sleeve, and Jean does feel its static electricity sting, but he doesn't move away, because he is not his stone thoughts. They both stop walking.

  


''Jean. Can we have a real conversation?''

  


The hand falls away. Jean looks at ahead at others. Ethan holds onto a furry hat when he jumps over a puddle, like it would fall off. It wouldn't.

  


('' _You look like a raccoon_.'')

  


''I probably won't say what you're hoping to hear,'' he says.

  


It's selection by consequence, he thinks. It makes sense he's not always motivated to talk. And that's better than snowballing into a pit he'd have to climb out of. 

  


And because – chew on stone thoughts and you'll chip your tooth.

  


''I'm not hoping to hear anything. Just what you have to say.''

  


It was supposed to have been a warning. It shouldn't come as a surprise that Jeremy can't read warnings. ''I don't have anything to say.''

  


When you see a _private no entry_ sign, it's easier to avoid it. Putting your hand on the handle is effort. Jean knows that. Jeremy must know that.

  


( _''Gross. My hair is sticking to my forehead and it's not even raining.''_ )

  


( _Then shower_ , Jean thinks.)

  


Although. Maybe Jean is intrigued. Maybe that's stupid. Because — somebody said, _okay, who's thinking about me? I've been hiccuping for over a minute_ , and Jeremy said, _no, you're just breathing wrong_ , and there must be something wrong with Jean, because the word he thought of was _romantic_.

  


Other Trojans round the corner, and that's a herd broken apart. Apparently that was Jeremy's plan.

  


''So,'' Jeremy says. ''Connor outscored you, and it was your drill. How does that feel?''

  


_Real conversation._

  


''He wouldn't have if he couldn't move all of his fingers properly and if I could,'' Jean says, voice a flatlands river. He doesn't say it for anything else than what it is: a fact.

  


''Not what I meant,'' Jeremy mutters.

  


There are a million things Jean'd rather hear than this. _What, will that stop you? How about a challenge? You could take one._

  


He throws his head back. His neck cracks. An exhale rolls out of his chest, slow and thinned by his teeth, like a soul vacating a body. A neck snapped in half, soul strings cut. But his breath is invisible under the streetlight. But he's still inside of himself. Grounded.

  


''I wish I had one,'' Jeremy says, ''then I'd be _interstellar_.'' His eyes are locked on the stars, and Jean notices Jeremy's skin is — it should be lunarly, like his own hands, grey until it adopts the tint of a light source. Not warm; it must be all in his head.

  


''Some things shouldn't belong to anyone but themselves,'' Jean says.

  


Jeremy doesn't divert his eyes, but his face plates micro-drift and re-drift. 

  


Did you know? Spontaneous emotions cross a face so fast most people can't detect them; from 0.3 to 0.5 seconds. You can train yourself to, and then all liers are exposed, and you're better than a polygraph. You don't depend on others' truth. 

  


But this was too fast for identification. A quick duststorm. The planes of Jeremy's face are even like a wave-licked sand shore.

  


Jean looks at the stars, and this time his neck doesn't crack. ''You're supposed to be the smart one.''

  


Leaves rustle and Jean's black-coated body, neck down, is devoured by the dark, and he didn't know unattachment could be comfortable.

  


And then Jeremy laughs, or more accurately, laughs _a little_ , gentle like bees and turning book pages with fresh nail polish, and says, '' _Ouch._ ''

  


And then — Jeremy _hugs_ him, Jean's arms locked to his body and their jackets rustle against one another right into Jean's ears and a body is at his chest — and that means he's a substance himself, right, because he's interacting? He thinks of a bicycle lock clicking together.

  


''What are you thinking?'' Jeremy asks. Softly.

  


The thing about thinking is that it's like ocean depths sometimes, for Jean. And magma. Thoughts are molten, pressurised, and he can't really pull a thread of its parts out.

  


He's feeling: the body tissue in front of his heart has thinned. 

  


''Jean.''

  


''What are _you_ thinking?'' Jean says. Then: ''You said you wouldn't do that. Fuck you.'' The heat of his words is lost in the heat of the embrace. And he can't cant look into Jeremy's eyes. But still. When Jeremy said, _not my place to evaluate your experiences_ , it didn't sound like something he'd forget.

  


''I'm not doing it. I'm just asking. Fuck you.''

  


Jeremy hasn't let go. Time runs slowly when you measure it in heartbeats. ''Okay, good. Don't do it.''

  


''Fine. I'm not.''

  


''Fine.''

  


They just stand there, and they could be the last persons alive. Jean wonders if his heart would know how to swim if it surfaced, and then Jeremy pushes him a step away, holding onto his upper arms. Jean's hood slides from his head and he feels himself blueshifting towards Earth.

  


Their eyes are locked, and it's _intense_ , when Jeremy says, ''I've heard that Europeans think there are no roundabouts in America. What are _you_ thinking?''

  


Jean unzips the pockets of his jacket and clenches his fist around the material inside. That makes Jeremy's arms fall to his side.

  


''I know there are roundabouts,'' he says.

  


Their eyes are locked, and it's intense, and Jean is playing with fire. 5000 K is inhospitable, and burn marks heal slowly. He guesses he likes it, stupid stupid stupid — his cheek muscles are all smile-tense.

  


''You don't have to do anything just because the Ravens do it in a certain way. Like, oppose it.''

  


''Okay,'' Jean says, not smiling anymore. This is what he means by _I don't want to be dependent_. Not because of Ravens, fuck Jeremy. He fucking ruined the moment. Jean just wants to — wants to control the feelings streaming around his ribs. He never gave anyone the keys to his palace, and they keep breaking in. Jeremy thinks he's being nice just because he takes his shoes off. ''That's exactly it, you said—''

  


''What? No, I'm just — making a judgement based on what I see. This has nothing to do with---''

  


''No, it's exactly the same. And you're wrong. You keep making molds for me to fit in. I don't have to fit in them.''

  


He thinks, _I don't have to explain myself to anyone_. He thinks, _interdependence doesn't work when I want it to, Jeremy_.

  


He adds, '' _What's up_ is a stupid question. Don't ask me that.''

  


Jeremy blinks. ''Okay,'' he says, slowly, stretched like power lines. ''But, like.'' His hands gesture at something, at nothing, his lips shaped around the absence of words. ''Nonedescriptiveness is bullshit.''

  


His arms drop. He's looking at Jean, emitting expectation like a fucking signal tower. Behind his eyes, Jean sees Jeremy blinking, and he blinks it away. ''What?''

  


''You're not thinking _nothing_. It's not— _nothing's up_. That's bullshit.'' 

  


_I told you I wouldn't tell you what you wanted to hear._ They're walking in circles, sometimes. Most of the time.

  


Then Jeremy says, ''I don't want you to _fit_ in anything.''

  


This is how Jean compiles nothings into persons: at times, Jeremy skips a lap as others are running and holds his arm our for highfives. He asks people for their playlists and says things like, _you know laundry detergent pods? Don't you just want to squish them?_ and stupid things like _the future is always bright._ Jean hits the target every time, but what's that good for? Jeremy, one person, interferes with himself and is displayed all over. And is more. He gives the phrase _be full of oneself_ a new meaning.

  


Jean doesn't need to say anything. His thoughts are loud enough, and Jeremy can do better.

  


Jeremy looks over his shoulder, then upwards again. Star-bound. He sighs. ''I understand not everyone feels like this. I mean, I guess I don't.''

  


And here is unwritten proof. Jean's silence was read. Received. Decoded — or somewhere in between. An absence of words is descriptive.

  


He compiles nothings into persons, and it's not just about Jeremy. Like Maia: with her white shoes she tiptoes around puddles and makes guttural noises when brown splashes dirty them, but she still chooses to wear them. Jean must be stupid, but he knows the reason why he is not averse to that, why he thinks the word _stupid_ in a tone that's softer. And why he hip-checked her on the court when he passed by and then pretended nothing happened: she had talked about a Jean and said _not our Jean_. Who knew possessive pronouns could feel so grounding as they sit on his shoulders?

  


'' _What's up_ is stupid,'' Jean says.

  


Jeremy's gaze is fixed to the stars, but his focus is wrapped around Jean's fingers, buried in his pockets. Then, he looks at Jean and opens his mouth, and Jean says, ''Do you have a coin?''

  


Jeremy blinks. It's becoming a motif. A fucking theme. ''Uh,'' he says, and pulls one out of his pocket. ''Yeah.''

  


''Look,'' Jean says, holds it with two fingers and inserts it in his fist, then watches Jeremy watch it disappear and reappear. When he holds it up, Jeremy's eyes are fixed on it. His eyes flick to Jean, then back to the coin.

  


''Don't tell me how you did that.''

  


''I wouldn't anyway,'' Jean says. He lets the amused be carried out with his words.

  


He compiles nothings into persons, and they are persons, not humans, because a person is more than that. Look at the brains of identical twins; they're as different as their experiences. Their neural pathways are experience-built.

  


And Jeremy is youthfulness, because _youthful_ is more than the antonym of _mature_.

  


Fuck Jeremy for thinking there's only one way of being received. Fuck Jeremy for creating a mold for others' definitions of being.

  


It's hard to understand yourself as a person, though, because you see all the opposing parts. 

  


He knows his primary senses: sight, hearing, fuse activation necessary. Shadow to your left. Deactivate fire detectors. He knows he's a person in inverse: surrender a ground truth and optimism an afterthought. But he also knows he doesn't want to be a traveler who buys travel insurance. There's that. 

  


And it's not just bad when he envies knowing a walkway like the bumps of your knuckles; knowing where puddles will be in the dark. The familiarity of it, and of the word _homewards_. There's that, too.

  


He drops the coin into Jeremy's jeans pocket.

  


He thinks: we need some time to burn.

  


  


  


**Author's Note:**

> if this made you feel something, tell me, please


End file.
